


Ever After

by JanitorBot



Category: Rockman Zero | Mega Man Zero, Rockman | Mega Man - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-20
Updated: 2020-04-20
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:54:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23758690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JanitorBot/pseuds/JanitorBot
Summary: She has always prayed for someone else’s safety, but never her own.
Relationships: Ciel/Zero (Rockman)
Comments: 9
Kudos: 34





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Prar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prar/gifts).



> A commissioned fic for Prar who wanted to have the following that can be summed up in two words: Hurt me.  
> I hope I did justice.

When Ciel was seven years old, she remembered a man on a chair with green eyes that glowed even when he didn’t smile. Sometimes he could look at her and sometimes he couldn’t, like she’s a breathing reminder of something painful, but he never turned her away if she ever went to him. Ciel liked him.

The man would visit her three-meter square room every now and then and tell her stories before she fell asleep. Unfortunate, humble girls who became powerful princesses. Tales of valiant knights who stormed into battle, saving someone, saving the world, saving something. Cue happily ever after. 

Then he stopped coming.

Her schedule changed after that. Grownups in white coats, constantly lingering by the sides like ghosts stepped forth and told her that the man was gone and that meant everyone needed to work harder now. That meant her. Especially her.

This was her new schedule.

Her meals: breakfast at eight, lunch at one, and dinner at eight.

Her courses: Systems Engineering and Management for Robotics with Dr. Gerkey and Computer Vision with Dr. Narasimhan in the morning. Dynamic Optimization with Dr. Atkeson and Mechatronic Design with Dr. Apostolopoulos in the afternoon. After a one-hour break, it’s Manipulation Algorithms with Dr. Muelling and Human-Robot Interaction with Dr. Sugimoto.

Bed by ten. Rinse and repeat with staff rotation and more rigorous classes every two months or if her instructors judged she was ready to advance.

And she was ready. She was always ready even if she didn’t want to be.

“He knew ever since you made that child reploid,” someone told her in a tone that was intended to be parental, but there’s a misplaced pride in it that makes Ciel’s skin crawl. “A cute family unit to encourage and nurture a human’s instinct to protect it. How absolutely brilliant.”

Yet they still took Alouette away because she was too “distracting.” They commend and scorn Ciel in turns, lecturing her that good girls focus on their duties and studies, and didn’t she recently turn eight? Eight-year olds don’t play with dolls.

“I heard them,” Alouette said quietly, barely audible with her mouth stuffed in the comforting head of her plushie, during one of Ciel’s rare breaks. “They said you’re smarter than anyone. If anyone could save us, it would be you.”

Oh. They wanted a hero. They delegated her to be the knight to usher in their happily ever after because X was gone, which meant Neo Arcadia was doomed to eventually crumble and fail and there went humanity’s chance for survival, apparently.

Really. _Really._

And they expected it would be her? _How?_ Ciel’s not happy so how could she make anyone else happy?

Well, if they wanted a hero so bad then she’ll give them one. That way Ciel didn’t need to be one. She couldn’t imagine she’d make a good hero anyway, couldn’t even protect Alouette for crying out loud.

So when Ciel turned nine, she made herself a hero. Someone who could save everyone _and_ her. Happy Birthday. 

* * *

When she first saw Zero, hanging like a strung up, broken marionette with hoards of Pantheon soldiers and Golems creeping closer from behind, Ciel wanted to cry. The irony of the entire scenario wasn’t lost to her.

A cursed princess trapped in a tower in a land of danger. Jealous dragons, bitter witches, thorny vines as thick as ropes. The hero ready to die to reach her.

God, Zero’s hair was longer than she expected. Rapunzel much? Everyone who took on this mission with her died and this was not the time for Rapunzel or Sleeping Beauty because Ciel was not hero material and Zero better be worth Milan and everyone’s sacrifice –

Not that they were going to last long with just themselves anyway.

In the end Passy had to sacrifice herself too in order to bring Zero back and lo and behold, Zero was everything the legends made him out to be. Strong, fast, literally sweep stupid girls off their feet.

Ciel had the awful, fleeting thought that she wouldn’t have mind waking him up with a kiss and hated herself more. 

* * *

Seven years later and Zero is cleaning Ciel’s walking mistake – again - though this time it’s Weil’s insanity that summoned Copy X from the grave. She watches Zero hop onto the transerver and pleads, “Zero…come back safely...okay?”

Zero nods grimly before he’s whisked away to Area X-2. 

Ciel stares at the transerver a moment longer and clasps her hands together because while she does believe in Zero, it never hurts to pray, nudge the universal karmic system to be in her favor for once.

Please keep the Resistance safe. Please keep her family safe. Please keep Zero safe. Pease please please.

She doesn’t notice that someone is behind her until she hears it: a shining sound a decibel above the monitors’ hum. Quiet yet sharp like a whistle gasping for breath.

Then comes a squelching crunch that lasts too short to be comes after along with a jerking push and an uncomfortable stiffness through her chest.

Her eyes fly open to her hands. Splattered in gleaming red along with the floor in front of her.

She twitches. Slowly lets out the breath she’s holding. 

The pain slams down immediately like a piercing scream wrenching through her spine. It feels like she’s being punched so hard that her chest is collapsing within itself and a razor skinning the sides of her organs from the inside all at the same and it’s - it’s getting hot, too hot too fast, every blood cell in her is crying out and she can’t breathe, _she can’t breathe_ -

Her legs give out beneath her. The floor comes up to her in slow-motion and a belated thought drifts over the overwhelming static that’s her mind.

She has always prayed for someone else’s safety, but never her own.

Someone is laughing above her. “Where’s your hero now, Dr. Ciel?”

Her ears are full with roaring white noise that she doesn’t know who’s speaking and it takes everything, literally everything in her stupid, frail human body to shakily lift her head off the floor, blinking at the blinding lights to see whose shadow is blanketing her.

“J-Joan?” she gasps through the awful brick in her throat. At the operator’s unnatural, wicked grin, she amends herself with a glare. “No…W-Weil…”

“This time, Omega is absolutely perfect.” Rouge enters Ciel’s vision from behind, buster resting on her hip languidly, and Ciel screams noiselessly when her Joan’s heel digs into the wound. “I can now manipulate all the reploids on the planet without using the Baby Elves, and make them do whatever I want!” 

Dr. Weil cackles with Rouge and Joan’s voices, and if Ciel focuses, she can hear distant laughter through the Base’s walls – _every Resistance member is possessed by Weil_ – and that’s what gets Ciel’s blood curdling cold, not the fact that she’s dying.

Ciel twists her head to an angle where the radio button is on her headset and drops back onto the floor. “Z-Zero...” Please, not him, if he’s under Weil’s will…

_“Ciel? What’s going on?”_

Relief floods her like a wave. She smiles and it hurts.

 _Weil’s here_ , she tries to say but what comes out is a watery cough.

_“Ciel? Ciel!”_

“Unfortunately, you were a little too late,” Weil crows, loud enough that Zero from the other side can hear.

 _“As soon as I’m done dealing with Copy, I’ll – “_ Zero cuts off, noises of blast fire overwhelming the headset that Ciel’s eardrums nearly burst.

Wincing, she shuts her eyes again, despising that it feels better to keep her eyes closed than open, the barest movement strenuous now. “D-Don’t come…a-all…hostiles…” she manages out with a groan. Joan is grinding her heel in for good measure.

 _”That doesn’t matter!”_

The operator takes her foot back to bend down in front of Ciel, elbows on knees and chin resting on her palms, her feminine affectation wearing Weil’s sadistic glee. The operator wrenches Ciel’s ponytail and pulls her up with it, the radio button released. Weil is milking every ounce of suffering from this. 

“The other reploids are going through your labs and I’ll get my hands on the energy research soon enough. If you cooperate, I’ll kill you right now. There’s no dignity in a drawn-out death, doctor.” 

Except it’s already too late for that, Joan’s image is being overlaid by an older scientist Ciel knew back in Neo Arcadia. She hasn’t seen that scientist for more than a decade.

Tears are welling up in the corner of her eyes, not out of the pain because she’s way past that, her body a ball of pinpricks and tingles. She thought the whole “life flashing before one’s eyes” was a metaphor, didn’t think it was literal but here it is and damn it all, she hates it. Her vision is fuzzy, there’s no way she can see Andrew and Alouette coming into the watch floor from the doors so well, it all must be in her head. She sees X and herself for a split second, then it’s everyone in the Resistance at the same time, moving through Command Center. No threat, no mission today, that’s why Zero is here…

Who’s rushing to Rouge, kicking her in the abdomen so hard that she folds in half, crumbling down with a twitch. He’s onto Joan next, her head flying off from her shoulders with a swift swing of his saber. It’s really Zero and he’s – he’s killing –

 _They’re not themselves, please._ Ciel gasps through the blood again.

Zero shoves Joan’s body ruthlessly to the side, his ever-held saber clattering against the floor so he can reach out for Ciel but he stops, uncharacteristically hesitant. He’s so close, the only thing she can see clearly.

“Ze…” she smiles wanly.

“What do I do?” Zero whispers, more to himself than to her, face set in frozen shock except for his eyes…oh god, he’s always the unfazed, ultimate warrior and Ciel has never seen him like this. He’s wrought with indecision, hands hovering above her, doesn’t know whether to hold her or risk moving her.

He only moves when she weakly raises her hand. He grabs it before it can fall.

He snaps up at the sounds of eerily coordinated footsteps echoing from the hallways. The Resistance was never a real army and no reploid here was designed to be a soldier. Zero is going to have to fight what’s left of her family and that’s enough to get her to move the blood in her mouth to her cheeks, to let her tongue move.

“Grab…my headset,” she orders. “USB inside…”

It has all her research for the CIEL system. She keeps it on her person all the time, a precaution just in case the Base is in danger and everyone needs to evacuate. No one was going to pillage it from her.

Zero curses, head whipping side to side, shouting,” X! X, where the hell are you?!” The closest to begging a higher power to fix everything. 

“Zero, I…” She gulps, a fat tear rolling down the side of her cheek. This is taking too long. This is like watching one of those bad, tragic movies that managed to survive the Elf Wars and the credits are going to roll soon with no happy ending in sight, not even a sequel, but if she has any last words… “I…” God, how is it that she’s literally dying and she _still_ can’t say she loves him?

“Save your energy – you can tell me later when you’re stabilized!”

Damn it all.

“Take the research and live!” Ciel forces out with a cry. She’s scared that she’s not scared anymore. She’s seeing more ghosts, Milan and Passy are in the room now and she can feel her own heartbeat petering out. “That’s an order!”

She's going to miss everyone. She couldn't protect them, couldn't protect anyone again, at least Ciel wanted to be _alive_ to see it all play out, but if she can’t have that then at least Zero has to be. _He has to_ , he's the hero so if there's anyone who has a winning chance to save the world, it's him - only if he _goes already_ _._

(She doesn’t want him to go.)

"I…I believe you, Zero.”

She shuts her eyes even while Zero is yelling, his voice washing over her, grip tight enough to hurt if she can feel that. Zero won’t leave so she needs to leave first.

Her pulse hiccups and her breath comes out in sputters. Before the darkness takes her, she feels Zero’s lips pressing against her, forcing air in. Futilely delaying the inevitable.

But Ciel doesn’t wake up.


	2. Chapter 2

Someone’s knocking on her door.

Ciel jolts out of her seat, papers flying off her desk. She scrubs her groggy eyes with tear-stained gloves, doesn't even remember what she was dreaming. 

She doesn’t know how long she slept, tries to find the nearest screen to tell her and gives up just as fast, finding she doesn’t care because it doesn't matter what time it is. The knocking is a reminder that she’s not alone and she’s not in the position to fall asleep crying like a child.

Ciel is the Commander and the Chief Research Officer for god’s sake. If there’s anyone in Base who needs to keep it together, it has to be her. She needs to be on top of her game all the time.

She inhales and exhales. After mentally counting to ten, she peels away from her desk for the door.

“Zero?” she exclaims, not expecting to see the warrior coming to her directly. By reflex she takes a step back. The Crimson Hero must have read that as an invitation because he strides into her office wordlessly.

Her heart aches, an undesirable combination of having just finished her self-pity sob fest and the growing awareness that the resident walking legend is in her space and it’s just the two of them - ugh, can her dumb brain choose one emotion and stick with it for once?

Her hands shoot up to her messy ponytail, trying not to look like a walking disaster. “Do you need anything?” Ciel forces herself to speak, feeling off-footed.

“Your light was on,” Zero replies simply.

“...Yes?” says Ciel.

Zero’s sharp, scrutinizing gaze rakes up and down her form in a manner that makes Ciel feel terribly self-conscious.

It’s hard not to feel self-conscious around him.

Finally:

“You’re not in good condition, are you,” Zero declares, sounding crossed between a statement and a question.

“What?” Ciel responds dumbly. She was expecting…honestly, she wasn’t sure what she was expecting, maybe something relevant to Neo Arcadia’s latest movements, literally anything else but that.

“You were barely walking straight when you left the watch floor.” His face twists, momentarily struggling to find the right words. “You’re exhibiting…signs of damage.”

Amazing. She’s so obviously screwed up that even Zero is going out of his way to confront her about it.

Ciel tries to grin but it comes off as a grimace. “I’m okay. I’m just tired.”

“You’re not sleeping,” he concludes accusingly.

“No, I am.” Except her voice doesn’t quite sell it.

Zero crosses his arms. “If the Commander is in a bad shape, that can demoralize the organization. What’s stopping you from achieving the sufficient amount of rest?”

“It’s…”

Sighing, Ciel covers her face with a hand. “Thank you, Zero, but I really am just tired. I’ve been trying to sleep, but it’s not like I can stop my brain from giving me bad dreams.”

“Bad…dreams?” Zero repeats, unsure.

It sounds laughingly petty, but when Zero voices it aloud like it’s an abstract enemy, trying to work out the angles to tackle it, Ciel smiles and it comes out genuine.

“I’ve always been a vivid dreamer,” she continues. “I know that reploids don’t dream so it may come across as a strange concept to you. Dreaming is complicated. It’s a similar process to reploids’ defrag during recharge. The difference is that it’s way less helpful and sometimes they make no sense, which sucks because they’d be so realistic I’d wake up disoriented.” She rolls her eyes. “Like standing on a hill that you’ve never been before with a hose to put out fires that aren’t really there.”

“Being in a foreign territory and overreacting to minor emergencies,” Zero converts.

“That’s,” Ciel starts strangely, taken aback. When she explained dreams to Alouette or any other reploid, they weren’t as quick. “Yes.”

“Is that common? To be brought onto a task that didn’t require your attention?”

“I – not really?” Ciel hesitates. She shakes her head. “It’s from a long time ago. I’m only using it as an example. I get different kinds of dreams now.”

Zero only looks at her as if silently prompting her to continue. Ciel reddens.

“It’s not a big deal. They’re worry dreams, which is completely normal.” She hopes they’re normal. It’s not like anyone back in Neo Arcadia talked about this.

Somehow Zero’s gaze grows more intense and Ciel lets out a weak noise. She doesn’t tell anyone what she sees at night.

How can she? She wakes up from the middle of the night with a nightmare of all the times she failed, of all the times she could have failed and that there’s an alternate universe where she’s dead, or worse, everyone is dead and it’s all her fault. She wasn’t fast enough, clever enough, and she’s surrounding by piles of reploid corpses, their unseeing optics aimed at her as if to condemn her. This is your fault, this is all your fault. How can she share such gruesome imagery to anyone around her?

They get so ridiculously violent that sometimes Ciel would stare at the ceiling, a breathing cadaver. She’s a reploid scientist, she among all people know reploids don’t have blood, not the way humans do.

(So maybe the red pools she sees in her dreams aren’t coming from the Resistance members after all.)

Realizing she hasn’t spoken for a long time, Ciel manages,” I was always scared that Neo Arcadia was going to find us and…and that would be the end of it.”

“Are you still concerned that Neo Arcadia will detect us?”

“I can’t cross off that possibility.”

“Security isn’t as strong as it can be,” Zero comments in a tone that implies there’s not much to do with it either. They’re doing the best they can.

“No, it’s not,” concedes Ciel. “We’re lucky that we held out so long. Now, I’m merely grateful that we have you on our side. In fact, I’m getting better sleep because you’re here,” she adds, trying to buoy up the mood. “At least now I know that eventually, everything will be okay. I’m more hopeful than ever and I have you to thank, Zero.”

“But you’re still worrying,” remarks Zero.

Ciel winces. “There’s a lot of things to worry about.”

The Resistance has only achieved so much _because_ of Zero. Zero is constantly buying them time and it doesn’t matter if it’s been more than two years now, sometimes Ciel doesn’t know where she stands with this man. Zero is this larger-than-life, incredible being and it’s out of life-threatening necessity that she can confidently issue him missions. Being the lone crusader against Neo Arcadia’s enormity is a colossal duty and the insecure, primitive part of Ciel wonders not if he’ll leave, but _when._

And it’s that same insecure part of her that has Ciel blurting out,” You won’t leave, right?”

Zero’s eyes widen and Ciel mentally curses herself, but now that it’s out there she can’t stop.

“I’ve been fortunate. Neo Arcadia puts human scientists like me on a pedestal while it stomps down everyone else. I have never and will never suffer like reploids do,” she says, pained. “If I didn’t find you in that lab in time, the Golems would have either taken me back or kill me. Either way, the Resistance would have died.

“I know that you’ve been fighting for us this whole time, but it’ll make me feel so much better if I have your word. Please."

Zero’s stare makes all the nondescript noises that Ciel usually ignores so much louder: the dusty hum of her computer, the occasionally groaning pipes, the distant echoes of metal doors opening and closing. The pounding of her heart.

The red warbot must have arrived at some idea because the inscrutable emotion in his eyes settle to something that appear more like certainty. He turns away and panic surges through Ciel. Did she overstep her boundaries? She did, didn’t she. Of course, Zero’s almost has all his memories back and she’s demanding more from him, what was she thinking –

Oh. Zero’s not leaving the room.

* * *

He has little experience interacting with humans.

Perhaps it's a leftover symptom from hibernation sickness that he barely remembers Dr. Cain now, but Zero knows that humans need rest more than reploids do. He once thought they were woefully inefficient as a race, until X once pointed out that androids have a set number of sensory inputs while humans have way more: cells constantly splitting and dying, nerves growing and expanding and they're processing everything all the time.

And _that's_ their default. They can't manually turn anything off. If anything _is_ off, that indicates a critical malfunction.

So he goes up to Ciel's bed, twisting gracefully in place and sits down on the tiled floor, legs crossed and back against the side of the mattress.

“When you sleep, I’ll be here,” he says nonchalantly to a stock frozen Ciel. “When you wake up, I’ll still be here. Would that suffice?”

The average reploid sleeps less than humans, and Zero recharges less than an average reploid. Theoretically, Zero can recharge on time at the end of the day like most of the Resistance members do, and still wake up before any of them. 

He makes the ideal guard for her. 

"Zero..." says Ciel softly. 

Zero gestures the bed with his head and she sighs in a manner that even Zero knows is half-hearted. The scientist comes to the bed almost indulgently, using her toes to push off her shoes at the heel, gingerly taking off her headset and releasing her ponytail. No radio, no distractions, practically falling asleep as she crawls under the sheets. She must have been exhausted because her breathing evens out a minute later.

She looks softer like this. Her knitted brows smooth away, her hair spread around her like a halo. She's so unbearably human, completely different to anything he's used to. He can't help but watch her.

And he does so, through the night and after. 


End file.
